Review: Jonathan Norton and Dallas Theater Center open MALCOLM X AND REDD FOXX WASHING DISHES AT JIMMY'S CHICKEN SHACK IN HARLEM,

 

Photos by Wesley Hitt

Malcom X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem

By: Jonathan Norton

Directed by: Dexter J Singleton

Produced by: Dallas Theater Center

Audience Rating: PG-13 (for language) 

Running Time: 90 minutes, no intermission

Accessible Seating: Available

Hearing Devices: Not Available

Sensory Friendly Showing: Not Available

ASL Showing: Not Available

Sound Level: Comfortable

Audio/Visuals to Prepare For: One scene is in the dark, be aware of sudden bright light.

Reviewed by Bradford Reilly

History tends to remember its icons fully formed. We inherit them as symbols—fixed in meaning, larger than life, seemingly inevitable. But before they became monuments, they were young. Fallible. Uncertain. They were still figuring out who they were and who they wanted to be.

In Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem, the Dallas Theater Center’s world-premiere production of a new play by interim artistic director Jonathan Norton, audiences are invited to imagine precisely that moment of becoming. Set in a Harlem chicken shack where Malcolm X and Redd Foxx did, in fact, work at the same time, the play envisions an early friendship between two young men standing at the edge of lives neither can yet fully see. With a cast that has remained with the play throughout its development, Norton’s work is intimate, thoughtful, and deeply invested in the humanity of two figures that history often flattens into legend.

As Foxy, Trey Smith-Mills (who performs through May 27 before Jordan Williams assumes the role…see the show twice and experience both!) is magnetic. A dishwasher who would rather work alone has ambitions far beyond the kitchen– Foxy dreams of becoming the greatest entertainer in the world. He’s always working some side hustle, always refining a joke, always searching for his next opportunity. “It’s not what you say,” he insists. “It’s how you land it.” Smith-Mills delivers Foxy’s humor with effortless charisma, allowing even familiar Redd Foxx-style punchlines to feel spontaneous and alive. Yet beneath the swagger is someone deeply afraid of being left behind. His warmth and vulnerability make Foxy’s gradual openness to friendship all the more affecting.

Opposite him, Edwin Green’s Malcolm is equally compelling. Newly arrived from Michigan, Malcolm is bright-eyed, restless, and searching—full of ambition, but unable to commit to a single path forward: a man with a lot to say, but no means to land. Green adeptly portrays a seventeen-year-old still reckoning with childhood trauma and attempting to outrun a violent past through spiritual grounding. Malcolm’s faith gives him structure, but it is his growing bond with Foxy that gives him momentum. Together, the two young men become unlikely mirrors for one another: one masking loneliness with humor, the other tempering fear with discipline. Their struggles remain unresolved, but the play suggests that growth itself—and the people who help make it possible—is what matters most.

The production’s design elements reinforce this sense of lives still in formation. Kimberly V. Powers’ set is richly detailed and beautifully realized: rusty, cramped, and slightly worn, complete with functional plumbing and a working conveyor belt. It is a kitchen built for labor, but also a fitting metaphor for transformation—a space of beginnings where identities are still being shaped. Claudia Brownlee’s costumes vividly evoke the period, but special attention should be paid to the wigs worn by Foxy and Malcolm. Their carefully permed, coiffed styles suggest an early assimilation to white beauty standards, becoming subtle yet powerful indicators of both characters’ evolving self-understanding. As they move toward self-actualization, their outward appearance becomes part of that journey.

Under Dexter J. Singleton’s direction, Norton’s play succeeds because it resists turning Malcolm X and Redd Foxx into monuments. Instead, it allows them to remain unfinished: funny, frightened, ambitious, and profoundly human. Malcolm X and Redd Foxx Washing Dishes at Jimmy’s Chicken Shack in Harlem is not simply an imaginative historical encounter—it is a moving meditation on friendship, identity, and the fragile moments that shape the people who go on to shape history.

Enjoy the show.

Bradford Reilly